The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-06-17
JESS.
byH,RDER HAceARp.
\nR.reI'lQes selemeHsnupeS SkSue,

byH,NpER HAccARp.
InR.res'lQes solemeHsaupeS SkIus
" suppose that she thinks that am going {,
be plugged. Perhaps am! wonder how
Bessie would take it. She would be awfully
cut up, but ! expect that she would get ovel
It pretty soon. Now don't think that Jes
would get over a thing of that sort in a hurry
That is just the difference between the two
the one is all flower and the other is all root.
And then he fell to wondering how Bessie
was and what she was doing, and il she missed
him as much as he missed her, and SO on, til
his mind came back to jess, and he reflected
what a charming companion she was, and
how thoughtful and kind, and breathed q
secret hope that she would continue to live
with them after they were married. Some
how they had got to those terms. perfectly
innocentin themselves, in which two people
become absolutely necessary to each others
daily life. Indeed. Jess had got long way
further than that, but Of this he was of course
ignorant He was still at the former stage,
and was not himself aware how large a pro-
portion of his daily thoughts were occupied
by this dark eyed girl, or how completely her
personality was overshadowing him. He only
knew that she had the knack of making him
feel thoroughly happy in her society. When
he was talking to her, or even sitting silently
by her, he became aware of q sensation OF
restfulness and reliance that he had never be-
fore experienced in the society Of a woman
OF course this was to a large extent the
natural homage of the weaker nature to the
stronger, but it was also something more. It
was the shadow of that utter sympathy and
perfect accord which is the surest sign Of the
presence of the highest forms of affection,
and when it accompanies the passion of men
and women, as it sometimes, though rarely,
does, being more often found in its highest
form in those relations from which the element
of sexuality is excluded, raises it almost above
the level of the earth. For the love where
that sympathy exists, whether it is between
mother and son, husband and wife, or those
who, while desiring it, have no hope of that
relationship, is an undying love and will en-
dure till the night of Time has swallowed all
things.
Meanwhile as John reflected, the force to
which be was attached was moving into &C.
ton, and he soon found it necessary to come
down to the unpleasantly practical details of
Boer warfare. More particularly did this
come home to his mind when, shortly after
ward, the man next to him was shot dead,
and a little later he himself was slightly
wounded by bullet which passed between
his saddle and his thigh. Into the details of
the fight that ensued it is not necessary to
enter here. They were, if anything, more
discreditable than most of the episodes Of
that unhappy war, in which the holding of
Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Rustenburg and
Wakkerstroom are tho only bright spots.
Suffice it to say that they ended in something
very like an utter rout at the hands of
much inferior force, and that, a few hours
after he had started, John found himself on
the return road to Pretoria, with severely
wounded man behind his saddle the ambu-
lance being left in the hands of the Boers),
who, as they went painfully along, mingled
curses of shame and fury with his own.
Meanwhile exaggerated accounts of what had
happened had got into the town, and, among
other things, it was said that Capt. \Niel
had been shot dead. One man who came in
stated that he saw him fall, and that he was
shot through the head. This Mrs. Neville
heard with her own ears, and, greatly shocked,
started to communicate the intelligence to
Jess
AS soon as it was daylight Jess had, as was
customary with her, gone over to the little
house which she and John occupied, "The
Palatial," as it was ironically called, and set
tied herself there for the day. First she tried
to work and could not, so she took book
that she had brought with her and began to
read, but it was a failure also. Her eyes
would wander from the page, and her ears
kept straining to catch the distant booming
of the big guns that came from time to time
floating across the hills. The fact of the mat
ter was that the poor girl was the victim of
presentiment that something was going to
happen to John. Most people of imaginative
mind have suffered from this kind of thing at
one time or other in their lives, and have
lived to see the folly, of it; and. indeed, there
was more in the circumstances of the present
case to excuse the indulgence in the luxury
of presentiments than is usual Indeed, as it
happened, she was not far out-only six
teenth of an inch or so-for John was very
nearly killed.
Not finding Jess in camp Mrs. Neville
made her way across to "The Palatial, where
she knew the girl sat, crying as she went at
the thought Of the news that she had to conf
municate, for the good soul had grown very
fond of John Mel. Jess, with that acute
sense of hearing that often accompanies
nervous excitement, caught the sound of the
little gate at the bottom of the garden al
most before her visitor had got through it
and ran round the corner of the house to see
who it was.
One glance at Mrs. Neville's tear stained
face was enough for her. She knew what
was coming, and clasped at one of the young
blue gum trees that grew along the path to
prevent herself from falling.
"What is it," she said, family; us he
dead?"
eyes, my dear, yes; shot through the head,
they say"
jess made no answer, but chung to the
sapling, feeling as though she were going
to die herself, and family hoping that she
might do SO. Her eyes wandered vaguely
from the face Of the messenger Of evil, first
up to the sky, then down to the cropped and
trodden veldt Past the gate of "The Palatial"
garden ran a road, which, as it happened,
was short cut from the scene of the fight,
and down this road came four Kaffirs and
half castles, bearing something on a stretcher,
with three or four carbineers riding behind.
A coat was thrown over the face of the form
on the stretcher, but the legs were visible.
They were booted and spurred, and the feet
fell apart in that peculiarly lax and help
less way Of which there is no possibility Of
installing the meaning.